Bête Noire
Liberties taken with the UNC: Missing Marines side quest.
Enjoy!
Edolus was an ugly dirt ball. The planet's nitrogen and carbon dioxide atmosphere refracted the light of Sparta in different ways than in a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, causing a shifting yellow-brown color where the starkness of space met the pressure of the upper stratosphere. In some ways, Kaidan was reminded of his brief posting at the garrison on Mars just after he made First Lieutenant. Maybe that's why he immediately took a disliking to Edolus. The sandstorm howled at them even as Shepard throttled back the Mako controls and deployed the mass effect thrusters. Though he enjoyed serving with his Commander, he suddenly wished to be anywhere but Edolus.
Shepard had opted to take the marine detachment stationed on the Normandy, and the six-seat Mako was full up with human marines. Kaidan and Shepard manned the main controls in the front. Williams sat behind Kaidan. Beside Williams sat Corporal Guo and behind them were Corporal Hardy and Private Fredericks. After the last month of searching for Saren and the mission on Feros, Kaidan thought that it felt a little strange to be back in command of his own detail again.
As the Mako sliced through the high winds, it felt like his equilibrium dropped out from under him. Overtaken by vertigo, he gripped the seat with one hand, blinking back the double vision and sudden nausea. There was no pain, so he dismissed the idea of a migraine. Perspiration broke out on his upper lip and sweat trickled down his spine.
He'd never been bothered before by atmospheric entry, but the sudden gravitational change made his skin crawl. Weird. Edolus had less gravity than Earth but a little more than the Normandy's A-grav. Kaidan watched Shepard out of the corner of his eye, wondering if she felt it too. If she did, she didn't appear affected by it. Her copper-colored eyes never left the amber readouts in front of her.
"What was that?" Corporal Hardy asked from his seat behind Williams. Kaidan shifted. The top of the tall young man's black-haired head was visible over Williams'. Kaidan had forgotten that Hardy was a biotic. Naturally, the L3 would be able to feel the gravity flux.
A smile spread across Shepard's lips. "I think our quarian guest has been playing with the mass effect generator," she replied just before the Mako hit the ground with a teeth-jarring thump. "For the better, it seems." She sounded impressed. Her fingers flew over the amber keys. "And it looks like our turian guest has been keeping himself busy by fine tuning the instruments."
The drop zone was brown and flat but pitted. The Mako didn't have the inertial dampeners that the Normandy had, so the team of six was jostled against their restraints as Shepard accelerated the craft across the desert plains.
"You mean engineering's getting shown up by a bunch of aliens?" Guo wanted to know. The young man had a sloppy smile on his face. Kaidan knew for a fact that the marine had a huge crush on Tali. Whenever Guo was off duty, he was in engineering chatting with her or making some kind of excuse to be close to her.
"You ladies are off duty more than you're on duty," Shepard quipped, a smile playing across her features, making her look her young age as she sidestepped the alien issue, "you could do some maintenance instead of watching movies. Or bothering our guests." So, the Commander had noticed too. Kaidan found himself grinning despite himself.
Williams snorted. "I bet these countersunk sailors couldn't even find the bulkhead remover."
Kaidan grinned having pulled that particular joke on many an FNG.
"The Chief speaketh the truth, Commander," Hardy laughed causing the Lieutenant to wonder if Hardy had ever had to search for the non-existent bulkhead remover. "Gimme a gun and I'll plug whatever target you want. Gimme a wrench and I'll throw it at the target using my biotics. Just don't ask me to fix anything."
"Noted," the Commander remarked with another wry smile. She turned her gaze to Kaidan. "Alenko, where the hell are we?"
He answered quickly. "Two clicks south, south-west of the distress signal, Commander. Point oh-niner degrees. There's an ore deposit due east of our position."
"Wanna make a quick cred?" Fredericks asked. "AGeS pays pretty well for surveys. My sister is a geologist with ExoGeni's survey team."
Shepard shook her head. "I've been stranded on a planet before, Fredericks. If I stop for ore, a survivor may become a casualty.
"Alenko, make note of the deposit. We'll come back for it. A quick cred sounds like a good idea. Burns is getting expensive. That last bio-amp cost most of my soul."
There was chuckling all around as Shepard gunned it and practically flew over Edolus' surface. It was all Kaidan could do not to be sick as the landscape flew past the portholes and the military's experimental land rover bumped along the rocky outcroppings just beyond the plains. Outside, the sandstorm raged. In the distance, meteors rained down. It only reconfirmed his thoughts that Edolus was a very ugly planet.
As they cleared the hills, an M29 Grizzly seemed to appear out of nowhere on their HUD screens. They were still some distance from the site, but Shepard slowed the Mako so Kaidan could get Intel on the situation. Kaidan rechecked their position on their Topo and the sensor signature of the Grizzly and remarked, "Visual and sensor confirmation, ma'am."
"Life signs?"
"Negative, but we're too far away for that kind of reading," he told her, his eyes darting over the scanners, "No hardsuit outputs, however."
"Interface with the Grizzly."
Kaidan depressed a key and entered a command. The computer squawked at him. "Negative, Commander. The Grizzly is offline."
"Can you do a soft boot from your omni-tool, sir?" Hardy inquired.
"I'd have to use the Mako's power output," Kaidan said as he thought about it, calculating a few logarithms. "That might work. Orders, Commander?"
She nodded. "Do it."
After a few moments of decryption and hacking, the Grizzly's VI finally gave him access. He frowned when the VI, Akron, gave him its last logs.
'Indigenous life form'?
On Edolus?
"Commander, according to the VI, the Grizzly was attacked by some kind of… of 'indigenous life form'. I can't access most of the logs because of memory core failure, but whatever it was, it…it was big. The majority of the systems are fried. Weapons systems were the first to go. Zero hull integrity. VI's confused as to where the crew went. Hell, the VI's confused about everything. I can't get confirmation on anything but some kind of attack by some kind of large creature."
"Lieutenant, you and I both know that it takes liquid to support life. You see any water around?" Her face was drawn and bleak. A frown furrowed her brow, pulled her plush lips down.
Kaidan swallowed. "No, ma'am."
Shepard rolled the Mako to a stop. They could see the Grizzly with startling clarity now, but were still a good ways from whatever might be waiting for them. She ran her hands through her hair and let out a shaky breath. Kaidan wondered if she was still being affected by the mind meld with the asari.
"Commander?"
Shepard didn't reply, but grabbed her helmet and yanked it on, pressurizing her hardsuit. Hardy and Guo followed suit without orders. Fredericks didn't move. Neither did Williams nor did Kaidan. When the Commander did speak, her voice was filtered through the Self-Contained Atmospheric Breathing Apparatus.
"How many 'indigenous' life forms attacked them?" she demanded, her voice tinny and hollow within the scaba gear.
"VI says one," the Lieutenant replied after double-checking his omni-tool. "It's emphasizing the size though, ma'am. At least ten meters, possibly fifteen."
God, help us, Shepard thought, forcing herself not to panic, swallowing hard. She studied the Grizzly, the landscape, took note of what appeared to be sandy mounds scattered around an otherwise flat plain. Kahoku's men were out there somewhere. And all she had were a small unit of five soldiers who had never faced anything like what she suspected to be out there.
Six verses a leviathan. She thought of plan quickly, running scenarios even before she started talking. If there were survivors…
"There's only one thing that could have attacked them," she told them, twisting around in her seat so that she could look at them. She was impressed that the two corporals had already pulled on their gear. Maybe they would survive after all. "Biotics won't work against it. But use your barrier anyway. Kinetic barriers won't do a lick of good either. If you get a breach, gel anything you can get your hands on. I won't tolerate decompressed troops.
"It'll go for the Mako first. We'll use the Mako as cover and take it out from the ground."
"Take what out, Skipper?" Williams asked, placing a gloved hand on the back of Kaidan's seat. She appeared calm, but having been around Williams long enough, Kaidan heard the small tremor of dread in her voice. He resisted the urge to hold her hand.
"That Grizzly's right on top of a thresher nest."
Everyone sucked in a collective breath. Holy hell.
"From the ground?" Fredericks asked finally, his voice shrill. The Private sounded like he wanted to shit himself. Kaidan didn't blame him.
"Full scaba gear, marines," the Commander ordered. The remaining marines pulled on their helmets and pressurized their hardsuits. When everyone was ready, she began talking again.
"Weapons check," she stated, and the subtle hisses of weapons deploying filled the tight space of the land rover. "Incendiary ammo and mortar rounds. Shotguns work best, but I want Williams and Guo to snipe the bastard from opposite ends of the Mako. Williams, how close are you to your assassination badge?"
"Final test in a few days, ma'am."
"Consider this your test," Shepard said. "We'll do the formal stuff when we get back to the ship."
"Aye, ma'am."
The Commander took a calming breath, and then coolly began to lay out their plan of attack. "Every one of you knows what happened on Akuze—at least you know about the unclassified parts: No communication from the colony. Routine patrol. When my team landed-everyone on the colony was either melting or gone. It was dusk, and once the threshers rose up, all hell broke loose. Two threshers. The team scattered, firing blindly at the glowing blue that just… appeared… everywhere."
She shut her eyes briefly with a shudder as the memory flashed unbidden in her mind's eye, reliving the roars of the threshers, the screams of terror, of Toombs when one of the creatures latched onto his leg and pulled him under the sand. She breathed in calmly and found her voice again. "I managed to find cover, but not before my hardsuit was breached by thresher acid. I watched fifty good men die that night because they were too stupid or too scared to fight from cover.
"We're to assume that's what happened here. We won't have time to check for survivors until after we kill the beast."
She took a breath before continuing, "Threshers will pull you under if they get the chance. Don't give them that chance. From what I've seen, Threshers spit out their digestive fluid and then eat their prey. Corrosive shit. Do not get close, and do not take risks. Stay behind cover until you've got a shot and then take it.
"I'll get the Mako into position, and we'll hit dirt on the starboard side. Be ready to bail out on my mark." She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts, hardening her resolve. Every moment she hesitated, someone else could be dying.
"Fredericks, you and Williams and I will take position on the bow," she said, meeting each of their eyes as she spoke. "Stay behind the Mako, and don't let any fluid hit you.
"Hardy, you and Guo take position on the stern. Run your shields high.
"Alenko, take up a position out of the way, but stay interfaced with the Mako. Calibrate your omni-tool to fire the main guns and use your HUD to keep a visual. Warn us if it looks like it's going for the stern or the bow so we can keep from getting any of its saliva on us.
"The Mako stays in one spot. Do not take any risks," the Commander repeated. "This is not Akuze. We know what we're up against, we have superior fire power, and we are calm. You're trained marines. I expect you to act like it. The Thresher will attack the Mako. Especially if the Mako is doing the firing. Use the Mako as cover and when firing, aim for the blue spots above its maw."
She turned in her seat and looked at every single one of them. Kaidan swallowed when her gaze lingered on him.
Shepard fingered her comm. "Normandy, what's your twenty?"
"Tight geosync, Commander," Joker's voice drawled back. "Problems?"
"Another fine Navy day," Shepard told him brightly. "About to play with a thresher. Have the med team standby." She said it like she was commenting on the pleasant weather on Elysium.
"You marines get all the fun," Joker commented. He was silent a moment. "Trauma team on standby. Oh, Wrex wants off the boat. Says it will be good fight."
"No time. We're too close. He can have the next thresher maw we find."
"Smells like varren after you piss on em," Wrex's voice cut through the channel. Kaidan really didn't want to know.
Shepard, however, nodded. "Yeah. I don't like it either. Shepard out." She looked at her people. "Weapons hot."
Bête Noire – "Black Beast"
Another fine Navy day – NavSpeak for everything has gone to shit.